THE
WHITEOUT
When
wind curls the snow on the edge of sheets
blowing
across field and house and whitens
the
sky so densely that eyes are blinded by white,
no
voice cries into that maddened wind
that
takes all cries into itself as one
to
protest that life diminishes us enough.
We
have the calm of our interior spaces
to
retreat to and keep such winds outside.
But
other storms there are that whiten and blind.
And
like the sparrow in the snowy wind
huddled
in the lee of a maple’s branch
whose
urge to sing is greater than his heart,
we
clutch to our perches and loudly cry
glorious
protests to life’s diminishing.
THE MAPLE, MY REFUGE, BESIDE THE HOUSE
This
is my refuge‑‑when summer oppresses and when
I
shun the gab of shrill America
and
the mortal darkness of its mortal sins.
These
thick limbs are barked so heavily
the
tree seems wrinkled witness to better and worse,
and
the scars of careless pruning mutely show
the
mortal ineptness of the human hand‑‑
though
flickers and squirrels and owls have profited.
In
the spring cedar wax wings come,
and
juncos and nuthatches, but robins grace it all summer.
When
I feel bleak and downcast, this motherly thing,
whose
arms make shade, takes these dark moods
into
her leaves and fashions them into night
that
I might sleep beside her and wake into light.
THE ORDINARY
I can change the colors of the world
make the sky emerald
and a tree glow cobalt
to flake phosphorescent leaves
at autumn
and I can make the same words hum
a dish of sugared fruit and rum
or make the inner eye descant
an octave or two above the moon
except for the lady with the pure white hair
whose face is florid in the somber air
for all the crimson miseries
that time betrays
her body’s own
wail in unison the tragic tune
age and want curse the way
the morning sun casts its ray
get what you can and what you get hold
that’s the stone that turns lead into gold
THE GEOGRAPHY OF EXILE
Light slashes through the heavy sky.
The shore road blacktop
shines gold beside the bay.
Charcoal clouds roil into the rifts.
A thin rim of white water.
Some things don't change.
Love changes. Memory changes.
But winter and ice
shine with November clarity:
A Christening gown that almost frays
at my touch.
An old aunt crushing olives at the
kitchen table.
A sister, in white, under the
sycamores.
A voice repeats my name in heartbeats
across the thousands of miles
under prairie skies where wind
hardens stone,
chants a geography of emptiness.
I no longer walk in the sacraments.
The plainchant announcement of
extreme
unction is an elegy I hear
on the edge of sleep: Joseph, Joseph.
CUSTOM OF THE HOUSE
A jug of apple cider sits on the
counter.
Early nightfalls and snow on roof
and lawn
make coming in a greeting to the
furnace.
Yams and turkey and pies, fruits and
nuts,
the table opened and covered with a
cloth--
these are closed links in the chain
of days
that bind children to parents and
parents to
the whitening of their hair, year
after year.
And then the house falls into
disrepair,
and nightfall and snow make the
coming in
harder to bear for warmth no longer
there--
for changes in the custom of the
house
and gaping absences where once
there sat
an eager round of people
transformed all that.
MEDITATION
ON RED PEPPERS
Charred
in the broiler till their skins are black,
the
softened flesh becomes sweet
and
sweeter after a pinch of salt,
tasting
like a Brooklyn summer when we
followed
the peddler’s cart,
and
our mothers counted zinc pennies
into
sweaty palms for peaches and peppers
and
eggplants and plums,
and
our fathers marched into Palermo
amid
crowds of women who tossed kisses and melons.
The
red flesh is streaked with yellow,
and
cream-colored seed disks cling
to the
strips made shiny with oil
that
glows red and turns the crust of bread
an
orange-red when dipped, tasting better
when
the troops returned and the city was fled,
and
in the garden of the country house
the
peppers profusely grew
with
tomatoes and cucumbers and squash
and
white ducks laid eggs beside the fence.
When
strips of red pepper
are
seasoned with garlic and oil
and
are served in a white china bowl
with
crusty bread before a meal,
with
squares of cheese and rolled anchovies
and
wine and uncles and aunts and cousins,
brothers
and sisters gab and squirm and eat
amid
the din of a Dodgers’ game on the radio and TV,
and
MacArthur fades into confettied streets,
and
the old ford rumbles in a cloud of exhaust,
then
red is more than color, more than a word.
Pepper
is a medium bearing tales
of
belief in having been,
as
though we were never children,
as
though this red carries in it tones
that
through the eyes tell strangely on the heart
of
warmth and closeness and familiar things,
red
flecked and streaked with yellow,
confirming
what we know--that when we are not
we
will have never been,
except
as this red is red, the pepper
peppery
and sweet with the light flavor
of
garlic and oil and the orange-red crust.
In
the sense of red we know our own eternity.
In
the redness of peppers we find our place.
I
taste this taste.
It
has the flavor of reality
because
in sense nothing seems but is.
I
taste a life that is always new,
and
timeless as the universe, as true.
THE
PIAZZA DELLA SIGNORIA
The
Turin Marathon is nearing its end.
The
piazza is stormed with people,
camera
crews, vehicles, officials
assembled
at bleachers, runners
arriving
in groups one behind another.
The
steps of the Palazzo are jammed
with
spectators, and barely over their
heads
I catch moving, shoved glimpses
of
David, Neptune, in stained marble,
a
sudden view of a bearded face,
solemn
Hercules, and we are pressed
back
by another group of runners
entering
the square, a wave of bodies
pushing
us against a van, around the back
of
which we struggle to squeeze and come
face
to face with Perseus holding
Medusa's
head, grave, triumphant, bloody.
A
great roar goes up, a new wave presses.
Anxious,
I grab JoAnn's hand
and
wedge through a knot of bodies
to
the courtyard of the Uffizi, gated
and
clogged with machinery, masses
of
materials piled for repairing
bomb
damage. We make our way through
and
head for the Lungarno, for sunshine,
open
space, and the green river.
Early
next morning the piazza is cleared,
deserted‑‑Neptune
gazes toward us
as
we approach, deeply shaded, and we stand
before
him, utterly alone. A chill
grips
us both, and I raise my collar,
close
the flap at my throat.
AT
THE PIAZZALE MICHELANGELO
We
find our way by accident.
The
rain keeps us under the umbrella
walking
arm and arm, lifting
to
allow a glimpse of the green flowing Arno
and,
once, a worker setting pavement stones,
seamlessly
joining ancient and new‑‑a craftsman
whose
work is rich as metaphor. We leave
the
city and come to a gate with crumbling stucco
that
stands like a sentinel beside the river,
a
comforting old soldier with his feet in a puddle.
Behind
the gate a ribbon of road
cuts
into the mountainside, forming a ledge,
and
we, trance‑like, tired, shuffle
up,
rain again pouring down, and lean into
each
other to stay dry, finding along the hillside
firs
and shrubs, carved grottos, pools overgrown
with
ferns, waterfalls, glistening wide‑leaf
plants
beading rain, mists lowering
or
we rising into them, tired, yet climbing
steadily,
because the road asks us to.
We
cannot see the marble balustrade
towards
which we climb. Our feet drag
on
the slope and our arms hold each other up.
Everything
about Florence has been this way.
Stonily
resistant as we plod in ignorance
to
come suddenly upon some height
from
which we glimpse the verities‑‑
the
girlish face of Venus, Mary's blush,
the
mad imperial look in Cosimo's eyes,
David
waiting‑‑calmly eyeing the Philistines.
SUPPER
AT THE CONVENT
JoAnn
tells Iole I like pasta,
and
next evening Iole
brings
gnocci in a fresh tomato sauce‑‑
"Per
Signore Giuseppe," Iole says.
"Grazie,"
I say, delighted, and eat
with
gusto, which pleases her.
"Solomente
per Signore Giuseppe," Iole says,
returning
with a carafe of wine.
I
am swimming in delight.
"Signore
Giuseppe," I say to myself,
as
I climb the long flights of stairs,
round
and round, up to our room.
My
belly sagging, I kick off my shoes
and
put on slippers and, drawing the shutters,
gaze
for a while at the piazza below.
A
man and woman are walking side by side,
the
man pushing a child in a stroller.
Giuseppe
wishes them a pleasant life.
Giuseppe
wishes Iole the best of evenings.
JoAnn
returns, and Giuseppe wishes her the best.
JoAnn
looks long and hard at Giuseppe.
"I
wish you'd shave off that beard," she says.
Giuseppe
stares in the mirror, and his face
stares
back, and suddenly he is tired.
A
strange ache fills his chest. Not ready
for bed,
he
nevertheless changes and gets in,
aware
that life is filled with tragedy.
THE
CHIESA SANTA MARIA DEL CARMINE
From
our window I see people entering.
It
is growing dark. I pour a glass of wine.
Bells
begin to gong across the city,
and
I feel them resonating, deep
vibrations
in my bones, in the wine, sounds
so
lovely they push the living world aside,
make
a space within that I can only fill
with
wine. I have nothing else. Love,
maybe. Or the ache I feel when I see the young
kissing
deeply, deeply ignorant, joyful.
All
is quiet now in front of the church.
The
piazza, too, is quiet, attendants gone,
the
spaces filled with cars left for the night.
This
is the quiet time before the evening
traffic
when people shuffle off to nightlife.
Not
many have gone in. I put on my coat
and
go down, cross the piazza, climb the steps,
pull
open the door. In the foyer a beggar
holds
up a cup, a man, thin, unshaved,
shivering
on the stones, his legs like sticks.
It
is dark at the entrance but lit at the altar.
Quiet. The priest has taken a seat. I sit.
A
choir I cannot see begins to sing
the
"Ave Maria." The
nave is filled with song.
The
space opened by the bells is filled
with
bewildering pain, a pain of loveliness.
Older
than the pain of Adam and Eve:
He
shields his eyes with his hands, she her breasts
and
genitals. Her eyes are deep
gashes of pain
over
her tortured mouth shrieking sorrow.
Their
nakedness is the suppleness of sin,
their
flesh the beauty of their souls. Her
corpulence
is a grace the very air
seems
pleased to caress. I see them, hovering.
Song
fills the cathedral, blessedness washes
over
all of us‑‑Maria...Maria...!
The
music's ending is a precipitous fall.
Later,
at dinner, I talk about the beggar,
about
the poor and homeless, easy things
that
words have a resonance to tell.
SYNAGOGUE
A
police van is parked in front of the gates.
The
side gate is locked,
though
these are visiting hours.
Emptiness
inside and oppressive cloudiness
give
an air of siege
to
the graceful copper‑domed temple.
As
we walk away, a tall, bearded man
calls
to us and asks if we wish to enter.
"Just
wait," he says, "someone will come,
the
place is not closed."
He
pounds on the wrought‑iron gate,
shouts,
"Someone
wishes to get in,"
and
a thin, pale man appears.
He
speaks angrily to our friend,
condemning
him.
The
tall man wants to see the rabbi,
but
the thin man chases him away‑‑
muttering
about beggars.
We
are admitted and ushered through
another
security door.
We
feel like intruders,
doors
electronically clacking,
opening,
closing‑‑
we
are not the only visitors,
though
we see no one, are alone
in
the temple, alone
in
its little museum.
We
leave,
and
the police van still
sits
ominously at the gate,
two
armed men inside.
The
side gate clicks at our backs.
THE
CHIESA SANTO SPIRITO
Poorly
lit, soiled, its spirit has faded,
become
cold as stone in the winter earth.
Who
worships here must live in memory.
The
priest, grey and humpbacked, coughs.
For
a moment, the cough fills
the
church's niches, bouncing
front
and back,
and
the old man waits.
We
shiver on the hard bench,
unable
to leave,
because
there are so few,
because
to leave is to abandon him
who,
bent, mumbles syllables
that
are mumbled back at him.
And
when it's over,
the
few who are here leave,
old
ladies, old men,
another
bent priest‑‑
no
children, no mothers and fathers.
And
when the church is empty,
I
walk to the altar, where
the
only lights give a view.
A
marble balustrade adorned with statuary
surrounds
it. Half‑shadowed,
a
Madonna stands on a pedestal,
carved
in wood, painted and gilded.
She
wears a crown and holds a scepter.
She
looks down consolingly at me.
A
tug on my sleeve awakens me‑‑
We
turn to go. Someone
long
ago understood
the
sorrow of a mother,
and
carved her expression
that
says, ″I know.″
SUNDAY
AFTERNOON IN THE PIAZZA DEL DUOMO
The
old man in baggy dark trousers
has
a drum strapped to his back
and
a circlet on his head with bells
that
he shakes with a rhythmic twitch,
a
bagpipe under his arm and an anklet
attached
to the drumstick that allows him
to
beat the drum by stomping his foot.
His
cheeks rhythmically puff,
his
head twitches, his foot goes up and down,
and
he emits a screeching, jangling,
thumping
nightmare of sound,
all
the while seeming somberly enthralled,
as
serious as Toscanini, as fat
as
Pavarotti, at most five feet tall.
A
seeded black hat sits in front of him,
and
a crowd gathers, watching,
as
somber as himself. Around us
they
are mostly Japanese, and they
do
not smile, taking his manner
for
their own. I empty my pocket
of
coins and drop them in the hat.
Without
altering his rhythms,
he
thanks me, his foot going up and down,
his
cheeks puffing out, his head twitching.
At
my back, the Santa Maria Del Fiori
looses
a hundred more tourists. The Doors
of
Paradise at his back shine brilliantly
in
the spot‑glare of photographs.
The
throng grows, and he stomps, twitches,
puffs,
thumps, jangles, screeches,
and
I see this silent amazement
in
people's faces, the wonder,
the
gravity of the Japanese,
as
though they were witnessing
the
inspiration of Vivaldi.
Or
perhaps what they feel is compassion
for
this old man, pumping his heart out,
baggy,
grey, fat, insistent, noisy.
Old
man, God bless‑‑
may
you do better in the clouds.
SNOW
for George Nielson
It
comes at its appointed time
to
whiten the prairie,
brightening
the child’s face at Christmas,
falling,
when it falls gently, on the tongues
of
those who lift up their faces
still
young and glad enough at heart
to
brave the flakes that settle down the neck.
A
wreath on the door in December
without
snow humping and rounding the bushes
and
catching the glint of colored lights
is
a cheat we feel all the more deeply
when
our own internal snow
drifts
calmly over our heads and brows.
At
its appointed time snow
lays
over the drowsy fields
and
over the eaves of our houses
like
a great welcoming metaphor of sleep
from
which we will revive
in
concert with the general resurrection.
But
George, this snow defies all reason,
coming
as it does out of season,
bringing
with it a city-wide alarm
and,
I might almost say, an intent to harm.
I
say, “might almost,” because I wouldn’t have
you
think I attribute motive to forces
out
of chaos, like some old demigorgon
bound
on destruction of a people
for
forgetting Nature and her due.
Behind
my house a great maple raises
her
three arms high over my porch and deck,
sheltering
us from summer heat
and
sweetening our mornings with her birdsong.
She
sways in the prairie wind
like
a girl swaying with her eyes closed
to
a tune she hums in her mind.
Mind
you, George, I said “like,”
don’t
be so critical of the inner eye
that
wants to follow likeness where it leads.
That
maple had her spirit out in leaves
just
tipping red and gold,
waiting
another week, perhaps, to begin
the
fall that would have me out there
in
sneakers and sweatshirt to rake them up.
All
the other trees had long since
begun
the ritual, and so survived.
Snow
came wet and heavy, filling her branches.
What
made her beautiful
and
gave her her glad grace
began
to hang and drag her down,
snapping
her limbs, breaking her to pieces
that
lay on the ground in accumulated slush.
And
as the snow came more and more furiously,
the
more she broke and came apart,
until
her crown lay at her feet
and
she stood a bare trunk.
And
now that the snow has melted away,
and
her limbs lie scattered with their leaves
still
red-tipped and gold,
I
feel a kind of aftermath like one might
on
looking over a battlefield
after
the fight had raged itself out.
All
things come at their appointed time,
the
year has its cycle,
sleep
and resurrection and the rhythms
we
turn our own lives by.
We
are born, we age, and we die.
But
some of us are torn by some hatred
that
expresses itself like this--
we
see it in the eye that flickers wrath,
taking
insult when none was meant,
or
the emotion out of tune with its context,
vehement
and deadly. Like something human
this
snow came, destroying the beautiful
with
that old familiar resentment in its heart.
BLACK HILLS
Black Hills at evening in the west,
where the eagle hovers with the sun
a moment and in a moment is gone‑‑
more than evening comes to take its rest.
Crazy Horse is turning into stone.
He heard the brass horn over the pine trees sound.
Clouds creep over the rags of days.
Air trails widen into a reddened haze.
Images fade like warriors under ground,
like ranks of shadows cast by the sun.
Fade, as if the last of days
had come, and all wars were done.
BLOOD
ON THE SIDEWALK
We
walked the three of us tonight
down
a busy Chicago
three
abreast, that neither might
fall
behind and come to meet
the
stranger whom we fear to greet.
Easter
Saturday--and out
alone
someone had met his fate.
From
up the block we heard the shout.
People
gathered, but they were late.
The
night had found its correlate.
We’ll
celebrate the resurrection
tomorrow,
in church--as we should.
The
sun will rise across the nation.
Tonight,
a woman washed the blood
off
her storefront walk as best she could.
DROUGHT
Dust storms in the north.
Here the wind is becoming constant.
Fine sprays of dust
are lifting.
Soon
ground blizzards
will grind the paint
off our houses if
rain doesn't come.
Brutal heat,
intensifies at four.
Outside, no one moves.
A faint smell of grass smoke.
By eight the sky looks
like brass with gusts
bending the trees over.
Eleven. The
spaces
in the house have not
cooled. The
beds are hot.
We don't
talk. Life
is an endless waiting.
Midnight. The
moon
seems to mourn for us,
seems to say, "Don't flag,
there is still promise."
But its light is like
lightening in the wind
that gusts with startling fury.
Two. I get up
and look out the window.
The lawn is almost white
from dryness and the moonlight.
Debris from the trees
is scattered all over.
Fine dust, almost like talcum,
on the sills, in my eyes.
Look! the heat
still wrinkles the pavement.
A gust takes
the curtain
and whips it into my face.
Lashed. I go
back to bed,
thoughtful.
For the first time,
I fear the morning.
ON
THE OCCASION OF HER SEVENTY-FIFTH
I
cannot get inside your head
and
feel the pains you feel in bed
and
those afflicting flesh and bone
that
make you curse when you’re alone.
Seventy-five’s
a good round number,
and
the septuagenarian’s daytime slumber
must
ease your pain with its heavenly calm,
though
Pina benefits more by that balm.
The
slumber makes up for the aggravations
caused
by the deliberate instigations
of
your warring children and Uncle Harry
that
make you wish you didn’t marry.
I
remember once when you got skinny
not
long after brother Vinny
moved
upstairs with his wife Johanna.
Oh,
you didn’t dance and sing Hosanna,
and
they stayed for only a little while,
but
when they were there you had a smile
that
still shines bright in the photographs.
Those
rooms upstairs--Vinny laughs
about
that wintry Saturday morning
when,
without giving me any warning,
he
pelted me awake with snow
he
gathered from the bedroom window
which
he and Annette had shut on me
when
I stepped out and began to ski
the
garage roof barefoot in pajamas.
They
both wished they were in the Bahamas
when
I disappeared and they heard Dad shout
as
I flew past his window and he ran out
and
found me sitting in a drift.
To
this day I remember the lift
Dad’s
punch gave to Vinny. But Annette,
no
one knows that sneaky Annette!
She
never admitted her part in that.
You
think she’s an angel--that Annette.
She’s
quieter than Hurricane Betty
but
just as bad--now think of Betty!
Mom,
our house was like a jetty
tossed
by the seas of her furious rages.
Peace
and calm came only in stages
between
the tides of her loony emotions
that
made you regret your religious devotions.
But
vindictive Vinny was truly bad.
You
don’t remember when he had
plucked
off my chest my one curling hair--
he smashed Annette’s rocking
chair
and
lost Uncle Jack’s baseball glove
and
tried one afternoon to shove
the
always suspecting “baby Robitt”
into
the dark living room closet.
Do
you remember once when Vinny
stuffed
a couple of Dad’s rigatoni
with
red pepper and put them back,
and
Dad, the hypocondriac,
couldn’t
breathe and thought he was dying,
and
wiped his eyes and kept on crying?
Poor
Dad, I remember his aching belly
when
you and Fanny Iacovelli,
without
the slightest twinge of remorse,
killed
his pigeons and cooked them in sauce.
I
remember--because Fanny made you throttle
the
two white ducks that used to waddle
in
our yard. Oh, the lives you had to rob
to
make a menu of ducks and squab.
The
very thought of it appalls.
That’s
why I favor spagetti and meatballs.
Isn’t
it odd how memory
makes
legends out of history?
It’s
legendary, I say without jest,
that
of all your children I am the best.
I
gave you least to worry over.
A
golden halo would always hover
above
my head like a Christmas wreath.
Dad
never had to knock out my teeth,
in
spite of the fact that Vinny got
grandpa’s
ring and I did not.
But
now we’re gone and your days are quiet,
though
at seventy-five you still have to diet,
and
cook and clean and tend the garden
like
before--time didn’t harden
you
into a fossil. You’re still a soft
touch,
although
that isn’t saying much.
You
never complain, never burn
when
Pina refuses to make a left turn.
You
don’t complain when Vinny and Johanna
want
you to go to Arizona
with
your hobbling hip at the airport gates
and
terrible heat of the Southwest states.
You
never complain, at least to me,
though
you love the peace and tranquility
of
South Dakota and come when I call--
that’s
because I’m best of all.
Now
Robert and Kathy--I’ve left them out.
They’re
youngest, of course, and I have no doubt
you
love them--Mother Love it’s called,
though
one is fat and one is bald.
I
love them too, with all the rest,
so
long as they admit I’m best.
ON THE COMING OF A COMET
I have seen eclipses of sun and moon
and waited for Haley’s comet
that, in our time, refused to gleam
a message for us or to mean
anything more than a period
means at the end of a printed text.
I had watched the eastern sky
for the comet Kohutec
to fly by
and blaze across the night
whatever alarms we might
take from its lonely passage.
But it augured no rebirth
of anything of worth
that died away from human life,
nor prefigured the kind of strife
that terrifies our nuclear age.
It came as Haley’s had,
a solitary and indistinctive dot
like its counterpart on a page of text and shot
itself into obscurity.
The last eclipse had turned the day
nearly into night.
Globes and spheres had something to say
then about our sense of insecurity,
something that we learned to feel
the truth of however slight
a difference it made in our
readiness for war.
At the moment of totality
many understood
the nature of reality.
And now, orbiting into our neighborhood
comes Hyakutake unannounced,
our scientists caught off guard,
blazing in glory a trail of illuminated mist.
In glory it seems to have renounced
an earlier reticence
and punctuates the sky
with a celestial cry
for more than a casual regard.
Because its coming is surreptitious,
we would not be superstitious
to read its meaning as an augury.
Somewhere where the waters run
the coming century was spun,
and high in the heavens a cometary cloud
has spoken aloud--
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